


Stay

by bowlikesatumble



Category: Ashes to Ashes
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 18:38:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1828283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowlikesatumble/pseuds/bowlikesatumble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A continuation of the end of S3. What would have happened if Alex had been more reluctant to enter the Railway Arms and to leave the 1980's behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay

“Gene…”

His name was but a whisper on the breeze that was brushing past them both, a quiet murmur in the tiny gap between their faces, their lips. Alex’s lips which had seconds ago been pressed softly to his for what was both the first and final time.

He opened his eyes and immediately moved back a pace, distancing himself from the woman in front of him, yet his gaze remained on her face. Her hazel eyes were wide and pleading, tears welling up and starting to fall down rose tinted cheeks, pinched by the chilly and bitter air of the late evening that surrounded them both.

“Go.”

Alex’s face dropped at the Guv’s single word, and for a moment he thought she was going to collapse to her knees in front of him and sob. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she had – after all- having received so much news in a short space of time it was unlikely that she’d not have a moment where she lost what remained of her carefully built composure and instead broke down.

After a brief moment of silence she stood up straighter with her shoulders back and her head held high, so much like the overconfident Bolly he would witness at work in CID when she was ready to get into an argument with him. There was a look of determination beginning to grown in her eyes and after taking a deep breath her resolute and stubborn reply was spoken.

“No.”

“Alex, you aven’t got a choice.” 

He didn’t mean for his words to come out so gruffly and abruptly as they did. He had been hoping she’d gain some sense and realise that walking into the Railway Arms that had appeared on the corner of the street was the only possible option for her now.

Well that isn’t true is it Genie-boy? You could let ‘er stay here with you but that wouldn’t be fair on ‘er. 

He pushed those thoughts out of his head. In this world where he was the one who helped to lead the lingering souls of those who were killed or near death carrying out their duty to a place of peace he knew he couldn’t allow himself to make an exception.

Even if she is the only one bloody worth it.

“You aren’t frightened are you Bolls?” he asked her, trying to lighten the tense atmosphere that had enveloped itself around the two police officers standing in the dark street by using the name he gave her back when they had started working together. “And ‘ere was me thinking you were tough as nails.” The challenging tone in his voice was urging her to prove him right, to be brave and step through the doors of the pub like the others had done.

“I don’t want to die.”

He sighed and lowered his eyes, staring down at the road unable to look at her anymore knowing full well what expression she would be wearing.

“Nobody does Alex but it’s the way of the world an’ all that. You’ll be ‘appy – no more worryin’ about yer girl and you won’t have to put up with me and that bastard Jimbo anymore. I thought that was what you wanted.”

He must have looked vulnerable (god forbid) because he heard Alex’s shoe heels clicking on the tarmac and approaching him until they were in his line of sight. His eyes shifted upwards and the thing that caught his eye was the scarf that Keats had presented to her, Molly’s scarf. One of Alex’s hands was clutching it tightly in her fist, as if afraid to let go or else lose the memory of the daughter she would never see again. Her fingers seemed to clench even tighter as she spoke.

“I know that back home I’m de-.. gone, and that it’s over and that I’ll never see Molly again...”

She paused, trying to stifle the rising wail in her throat and shifted slightly which caused the Guv to look up into her tearstained face, so lost in her sorrowful expression that he didn’t notice as Alex’s free hand moved towards his chest and under the lapel of his suit jacket until he felt it resting on top of his shirt.

“…but this world which I once thought of as being a figment of my own subconscious and you an imaginary construct can’t be simply my mind playing tricks. I can feel your heart beating Gene – you’re standing in front of me and you’re real, you’re ALIVE. And if you are then so am I. Everything I have lived through during my stay here has been no less real than anything from where I came from, so could you condemn me to die a second time when there is another lifetime right here that could be continued and fulfilled? Could you do that?”

The hand that had been lingering above his heart lifted and was soon settled on the Guv’s mottled cheek, Alex’s fingertips lightly tracing the warm skin of his face while simultaneously keeping his head from turning away from her as she asked him her final question, her brown eyes locked with his blue ones.

“Could you kill me Gene?”

The Guv seemed to visibly deflate with her words but his gaze remained in a stalemate with Alex, refusing to look away from her inquisitive red rimmed eyes which seemed to suddenly flash with some emotion before disappearing just as swiftly.

‘Course I could bloody kill you you dozy mare! Look at what yer doing! Making things bleedin’ difficult as usual.

“Well I ‘ave shot you. I think that’s close enough.”

Gene again offered the response as a way to try and break the tension but even he himself could sense the lack of power behind those words. He had threatened to fire his gun at her in the past during one of their heated sparring matches over a case, but when it had actually happened it had been completely by accident.

Alex’s eyes flashed with that unknown emotion again but this time it remained instead of vanishing like before and what looked like a tiny smile started to grace her lips.

“You brought me back though.”

Hope. That was what the gleam in her eyes must be. Alex was beginning to grow more confident and assure herself that she would somehow manage to persuade him to let her stay here.

“And what a bloody disaster that was!”

The words were scathing and a low blow of which he was sure. He had brought her back so she could clear his name, and in return she’d sold him out to the devil – literally – and helped destroy the once tightly knit C.I.D. department that he had spent so many years forming.  
She winced at his comment, but refused to back down from him knowing that it was what he wanted. This was not the first time she had encountered the stubbornness and the temper of Gene Hunt and after having faced him on so many occasions there was no way she would simply keep her mouth shut and let him win the argument.

“Then you should have left me in the coma Gene! I’d gotten back home to my daughter! I was living my old life and yet you managed to drag me back here and did I once complain about it? No I bloody well didn’t because I knew you needed me here!”

Alex paused and took a breath, trying to collect herself and make her sudden anger dissipate. She couldn’t make him feel guilty about that when she knew deep down that regardless of his intervention she would still have died in her own time.

“You still need me Gene.”

“The Gene-Genie doesn’t need anybody Bolls.”

Liar.

“Well I think you do.” Responded Alex, her voice flowing softly from her lips. “You’ve just lost Ray, Chris and Shaz and you let go of Sam and Annie before. So that just leaves you all by yourself in that office of yours drinking whisky.”

“I think you’ll find that my job is clearing scum off the streets Bolls.”

“Fine.” She sighed irritably “It leaves you catching criminals and maintaining the way of the law all by yourself. You need someone to stand alongside you Gene.”

“No.”

“For god’s sake you stubborn man!” bellowed the voice of Alex, the sound seeming to bounce off the buildings that lined the street. “I’m offering to stay here so you don’t need to be alone anymore. I’m willing to give up whatever lies behind that door” she pointed firmly towards the Railway Arms “to remain here and put up with your arrogant, headstrong, conceited and brutish behaviour.”

“You’ll ‘ave me blushing in a minute.” Cut in the Guv, trying to act as though he was neither surprised nor a little bit hurt at her outburst and few chosen words. She wanted to stay here? With him? Even though she appeared to think he only had unpleasant character traits?

“You know that isn’t what I meant Gene.” She paused for a second, thinking to herself before continuing. “Actually I suppose it is really, but…”

To Alex’s annoyance, the Guv sharply interrupted her, his voice raised.

“Right Madam Fruitcake, I’ve had enough of your drivelling so let’s get this over with now shall we?”

When Alex did nothing by continue to stand and look at him, a hesitant look on her face, The Guv decided to carry on with his own prattling.  
“If, and only if because this is all hypothetical stuff, you stayed what d’ya think would ‘appen? That you’d go catch scum during the day and go back to yer flat, get pissed and think about yer kid each night?”

By the lack of reaction on the woman’s face, he knew that she had considered that possibility.

“That would only last for so long Bolly, and eventually you’ll start ter get like Chris an’ Ray. Things’ll start ter get fuzzy until one day you wake up and you’ve forgotten everything about where you came from. You’ll forget about yer daughter. Is that somethin’ you’d let happen to you? Because that’s what you would be choosin’ if you stayed ‘ere Bolly.”

“I…” Alex had started to speak but as the Guv’s words began to stick in her mind, her jaw was left hanging open. Could she willingly allow herself to forget about Molly? She lifted the hand that had the scarf in it and brought the piece of material close to her face, closing her eyes tightly and inhaling the smell of her daughter from the fabric.

This could all become unrecognisable to me. This scarf could just become another bit of cloth that gets put into the wardrobe without even so much as a second glance or thought. 

“Alex...”

The use of her first name snapped the DI out of her thoughts and she looked up towards the Guv, her eyes meeting his. There was something gentle in the way he was looking back at her.

“You don’t want to forget ‘er Alex, you can’t.” The Guv appeared to take a deep breath before continuing on, finding himself almost unable to say the words that followed. “So you’ve got ter go into the pub.”

“If I go in there I get to remember her.” Murmured Alex, turning her head to steal a glance at the pub before coming to face Gene again.  
“I think that’s what I just said you dozy mare.”

“I’ll remember her and go on feeling upset and scared for her because I left her behind…”

The DCI was about to cut in once again with a comment, to try and reassure her that Molly would be alright, but Alex held up her free hand towards him, motioning for him to stop with whatever it was he was about to say.

“…but I’ll also remember you and feel the exact same for doing the precisely the same thing to you.”

Bugger. I didn’t expect that.

“I’m a big boy Bolly, I can take care of myself.” Was his quick and rather rigid reply.

“Okay. I see that I’m not going to be able to get through to you like I had anticipated Guv.”

Hearing Alex using his title sent a ripple of some unknown feeling down his spine and through his bones and not even a second afterwards did he realise that that had been her intention. She was trying to coax him into letting her get her own way and damn it she was on the verge of succeeding.

“Right, get talking Bolly. You’ve got 2 minutes to convince me or else I’m going ter shove you through that door with me own ‘ands.”

“Right. Right I…” she hesitated or a brief moment, unsure of just what she should say. Though if this was to be her final shot of getting the Guv to listen to her she realised she would just have to be honest.

“90 seconds Bolls.” Came the sharp tone of Gene’s voice as it drifted between the two of them in the darkened street.

Alex lowered her eyes, looking towards the concrete of the road as she began to explain herself.

“Gene, I don’t want to forget my daughter. She is the most important person to me and I love her and no matter what happens I’m always going to miss her. But she isn’t the only person I care about.”

At her last sentence, she raised her head and looked straight towards him, hazel eyes locking his in an intense gaze, urging him to see the truth in the words she was speaking, to recognize the multitude of emotions that she was feeling.

“You and I, well, it hasn’t been easy but I’ve found that I may have some sort of affection for my imaginary construct.” She dared to smile a little at that and use her free hand to make the inverted comma gesture like she used to when she had first arrived here in 1981. Her smile soon faded though as seriousness crept back into her words.

“I can walk into that pub and remember Molly and you and be completely heartbroken for however long things last behind that door, or I can stay here and be miserable over my daughter until she completely disappears from my memory. I can’t believe I’d ever contemplate such a thing happening, but my reasoning is this. And please hear me out Guv.”

He nodded his head once, urging her to continue.

“I can live with the sadness over losing the people I love, but there is a chance here for me to live with something close to happiness. If I forget Molly I’ll eventually be able to live a semblance of a normal life here in the 1980’s and, as selfish as it sounds, I would still have you. I could be really REALLY content here Gene. But it also depends on what you want. I’m standing here pleading you for a chance at a life. But it ultimately rests in your hands because you’re the only person who can decide.”

Gene suddenly felt like an enormous weight had been dropped onto his shoulders, crushing him towards the ground with each passing second. She wanted to know if her being here was what he wanted. When was the last time he had properly allowed himself to be self-centred and take something for himself, to allow himself a chance to hope for some kind of future where he was no longer alone.  
In front of him stood the most irritating, gobby yet intelligent and beautiful woman he’d ever met in his entire life. She had proven time and time again that she could knock him down a peg when he was being his cantankerous self at the police station, she could match his temper when they argued and she looked damn good when dressed up in her skimpy dresses.

But above all she was kind. She had always shown compassion to those around her and here she was showing the same genuine goodness for him, and not out of pity. She had said that he needed her, but now there was no mistaking the fact that she needed him as well in return.  
The silence drew on and Alex was looking more and more uncertain with each passing second. Her eyes were searching his to try and gauge any kind of response from him but she appeared to be getting nothing at all as her brow furrowed with confusion.

The multitude of reasons why she should leave were clouding Gene’s mind but with each passing second a reason for her to stay would appear and seemingly create a counterbalance, melding the ‘whys’ with the ‘why nots’ until they vanished almost like a puff of smoke, gradually clearing his head as each reason met its counter.

And that left him standing with Alex in the dimly lit street staring at his DI with a newfound sense of clarity which he could honestly say he’d never experienced before.

I need her.

She was looking back at him trying to put forward an air of confidence, but was betrayed by her fist clutching the scarf tightly in her hand as the hidden apprehension flowed through her.

His cool blue eyes swept over Alex as they both continued to stand in the silence. His gaze would flicker from her hair that was being pushed around by the breeze to her eyes then down to her lips before returning back to her eyes once again. She felt the colour rise to her cheeks and glanced down for a second before regaining her senses and looking back at him. This time when she looked at the Guv though, the coolness that was there not moments before had vanished and warmth had filled them.

Alex wasn’t stupid in the least and she knew the Guv cared deeply for her even if he had never really said so in the past. Gene Hunt wasn’t a man of words when it came to emotions –unless it was anger- rather showing them through his (albeit unconventional) actions. Every refill of red wine he poured her, each door he held open for her, and every comment he made about her supposed ‘bony arse’ originally meant as an insult were all carried out by an underlying affection that ran through him, too full of pride to say or do things outright in case she somehow managed to hurt him.

Enough was enough, the silence had begun to draw on for far too long and Alex was starting to lose her nerve just standing here under the scrutiny of his eyes. They could stand in the cold air of the London evening and resolve nothing but obviously that would get them nowhere in the long-term so mustering what was left of her valour, she spoke his name softly, a question against the breeze.

“Gene?”

Moment of truth Genie-boy, mustn’t keep the lady waitin’ after all.

His response was so silent that Alex had to strain herself to hear the single word that passed through his lips. But when she had taken a short second to truly comprehend what it was he had spoken, a water smile found its way to her mouth, her eyes welling up with tears as relief coursed through her and she closed the distance between her and the Guv, wrapping her arms around him tightly and burying her face in his chest as his own arms enveloped her, crushing her to him.

On a chilly evening on a quiet London street, a near silent word was drifting through the air until it was carried away on the gentle wind.

“Stay.”


End file.
